Bill Joy (a co-founder of Sun Microsystems) offered his long-discussed
six Web framework once again as a way for people to understand what the
Internet is and what categories all of its future changes will fall
into.

Paul Taylor has written a sad story on the failure to get a public alert system in place before Hurricane's Katrina and Rita changed the political landscape. Some key quotes:

"The Department is in contempt of Congress," claims Peter Ward, a
veteran of a decades-long effort to improve public alerting and now an
independent consultant to NASCIO on the all-hazard alert pilot, "If I
were called by Congress to testify on why public warnings did not go
forward, it would only take one word -- FEMA."

The renewed Congressional interest in warning systems could cut both
ways for the state-based approach to a national alerting program. It
could shake loose the long-awaited funds to meet the original mandate
and provide addition funds for the national build out of this and other
allied alerting initiatives. It could also have the unintended
consequence of swamping the NASCIO-sponsored state solution with a
centrally-controlled federal system that could do for alerting what the
creation of the Department of Homeland Security did for FEMA.

According to Governing,
P.K. Agarwal has assumed the position of director of the
Department of Technology Services, the state's top technology position.
Agarwal was previously a vice president at Affiliated Computer Services and a former president of NASCIO (then NASIRE).

While verifying Agarwal's service to NASCIO, I came upon this 1997 article, aptly titled Can Governments Get Along? The article talks about the technology promises of the past.

Remember kiosks? "Stovepiped," a word I really despise, shows up in the 1997 article as well. Unlike kiosks, stovepipes live on. Perhaps Mr. Agarwal will be able to tackle that one.

Government Technology has posted a rather lengthy piece on IT consolidation in Michigan. Teri Takai, state CIO, discusses the process and provides quite a bit of added detail beyond what is usually published, including "what went right," and "what went wrong" comments.

From past NASTD meetings, frank project discussions about what could have been done better are the highlight for many attendees. NASTD members are typically mid and upper level career civil servants for whom the nuts and bolts description of this kind of transition will have appeal. This is good stuff.

Government Technologyhas the story on a big, big purchase. Included in the price:

The contract price of the Statewide Wireless Network is $2.005 billion,
financed over a 20 year period. Included in the total price is network
design, materials, construction, towers, shelters, fixed assets,
network equipment and finance charges. In addition, the cost of site
leases, operation and maintenance of the network over the twenty year
term and future upgrades are included in the cost.

According to the article, many local jurisdictions have expressed a desire to participate in the statewide wireless network, or SWN.

Nicholas Carr has a lengthy post entitled "Massachusetts and Microsoft" on the commonwealth's attempt to move to open source office software and Microsoft's initial response to the effort.

It's great reading. I particularly liked this quote:

In commenting on Microsoft's response, Massachusetts's secretary of
administration and finance, Eric Kriss, put the state's position into
perspective. 'It's an important issue,' he told the Boston Globe. 'Open formats are at the very heart of our democratic process. The
question is whether a sovereign state has the obligation to ensure that
its public documents remain forever free and unencumbered by patent,
license, or other technical impediments. We say, yes, this is an
imperative. Microsoft says they disagree and want the world to use
their proprietary formats.'

There is a connection between open networks and open government, a nation of the people and IP addresses. It's good to see it stated it so plainly.

Having attended a number of NASTD annual conference events in the past, I noticed for the first time this year an awareness that technology has become more than just technology (full disclosure, I work for NASTD). The theme this year was disruptive technologies. These tools are reshaping and affecting us in dramatic ways because they double as personal media.

On Monday I was pleased to hear Bill Smith also talk about the media plays launched by the once stolid Bell companies. Mr. Smith is the Chief Technology Officer for BellSouth.

Today, I read that EBay is acquiring Skype. What's knowable can now be known in an instant.

The other outcome I see flowing from the disruptive technology focus this year is an increasing emphasis on the distributed workplace.

The combination of the Web and mobility technologies will forever alter how people combine to share knowledge on behalf of a common business or social goal. The Web, which increasingly acts like an information utility is the perfect complement to mobility.

Scanning my feeds today, I also read that a group called the "distributed work industry association" has been created. Check out the Future of Work web log.

People have more power than ever to shape their professional lives. Free to create as well as consume media, their work space is anywhere they can get a broadband connection. Knowledge portability makes this possible and, I believe, will reshape state government as we know it. Hierarchies will flatten. Information wants to be free. Now it can be.